Put On a Happy Face (Big Brother is Watching).
Put On a Happy Face (Not a Relentlessly Negative One)
White House proposal would ease FBI access to records of Internet activity:
The Obama administration is seeking to make it easier for the FBI to compel companies to turn over records of an individual’s Internet activity without a court order if agents deem the information relevant to a terrorism or intelligence investigation.
The administration wants to add just four words — “electronic communication transactional records” — to a list of items that the law says the FBI may demand without a judge’s approval. Government lawyers say this category of information includes the addresses to which an Internet user sends e-mail; the times and dates e-mail was sent and received; and possibly a user’s browser history. It does not include, the lawyers hasten to point out, the “content” of e-mail or other Internet communication….
To critics, the move is another example of an administration retreating from campaign pledges to enhance civil liberties in relation to national security. The proposal is “incredibly bold, given the amount of electronic data the government is already getting,” said Michelle Richardson, American Civil Liberties Union legislative counsel.
The critics say its effect would be to greatly expand the amount and type of personal data the government can obtain without a court order. “You’re bringing a big category of data — records reflecting who someone is communicating with in the digital world, Web browsing history and potentially location information — outside of judicial review,” said Michael Sussmann, a Justice Department lawyer under President Bill Clinton who now represents Internet and other firms.
While booman Tribune attacks the messenger for “shoddy reporting because no senators or congresscritters weigh in, I find myself nodding to the infectious Balloon-Juice beat:
it is impossible to think of a situation in which any administration, Republican or Democratic, can not just say national security and get whatever they want. And, as we’ve learned, even if they don’t get what they want, they’ll do it anyway, and the next administration will just “look forward, not backwards.” Unless you’re a whistleblower.
Back to the substance of the issue- wtf is so hard about getting a damned warrant?
Exactly (and for the record, Cole does not live in an alternative universe of permanent outrage and relentless negativity, fueled and fostered by the blogosphere). For example, just yesterday, despite “promises made by everybody running everywhere for every seat in every branch of the federal government not to fund the wars through supplemental appropriations ever again”, we just threw another $37 billion down the toilet in the name of national security.
So now Black Bush wants to read “the addresses to which an Internet user sends e-mail; the times and dates e-mail was sent and received; and possibly a user’s browser history.”
Put on a happy, hopeful, changeful face because Big Brother is watching.
July 29th, 2010 at 3:55 pm
The next time I hear ‘If you don’t have anything to hide, you shouldn’t worry about your privacy’, I’m going to projectile vomit.
If you want to really scare yourself, check out Steve Rambam’s ‘Privacy is Dead’ talk- he gives the same (updated) talk every two years at the H.O.P.E. conference in NY.
But there are a few things one can do to keep (some) of their activities private:
1. Encryption. There are freeware/open source versions of PGP out there that plug into an email client. Truecrypt and Freecrypt can be used to encrypt folders or your entire hard drive.
2. Know how your computer works. Know about browser and flash cookies.
3. TOR is awesome (tor.eff.org). While it’s not perfect, it’s a nice tool to prevent your ISP from seeing what you’re up to.
4. Know what you’re doing. Know what other people are doing. Google doesn’t delete anything that’s potentially useful.
You can use the tools that hackers created to fight big brother, or you can shrug your shoulders.